Alpha - Prologue

PART I

Prologue

Year 823

The grass waved lazily in the wind like long, thin fingers. The blades shimmered and rippled beautifully in the late evening sun. In the middle of this sea of grass stood a tall, lonely oak tree. Its leaves were a host of Autumn's hazel brown and dull red colors.

Two boys ran laughing through the thick growth towards the tree, stumbling through the knee-high grasses.

The boy at the front was grinning and calling back to his friend. His eyes were a startling yellow color and his hair a tousled mop of mousey brown that flew around his head in the wind like a mighty lion’s mane.

His friend had sky blue eyes and pale skin, with slightly curled blonde hair and a splash of freckles across his nose. He was struggling to catch up to his friend, but to no avail.

They slowed to a panting stop as they came within reach of the trees dappled green shadow. Here, the long grass died out to a dusty clearing with the great trees thick trunk sitting proudly in the center.

The blonde boy stood panting by his friend, clutching his sides.

“I win again,” The boy with yellow eyes said rather illustriously.

“That’s…not fair, Eryx,” The blonde boy managed, “I can’t…keep up with a wolf,”

Eryx laughed, running a hand through his mousey hair, “I suppose so,”

He laughed again, turning back to his blonde friend, “Well Enden? Get climbing!”

Enden looked up at the tree uncertainly. It seemed impossibly tall through his eyes.

“Um…you first,” Enden said hopefully. He put on a defiant expression, but his blue eyes betrayed his fear.

Eryx felt no sympathy for his friend, “Now, now, young Enden,” He said sarcastically, ”We had a deal. Whoever was last to the tree climbs first,”

Enden mumbled, “I always climb first,”

Eryx caught his friend’s complaint, “That’s ‘cos you always lose,”

Enden sighed, making a face at his friend as he walked toward the great oak’s broad trunk, gripping a low, sturdy branch and hoisting himself up and gripping another, and another until he grew into a joyous rhythm, leaving his fears on the ground below.

Eryx watched on from the ground as his friend rose higher and higher, swinging from branch to branch like a blonde monkey. When Enden reached about the halfway point of the tree, he sat perched on his knees, resting on a particularly thick branch. He took a glance at Eryx, who had scarcely moved from his spot in the shelter of the trees shadow. Enden snorted and shouted down,

“Hey! I’m not climbing this by myself, you know!”

Eryx grinned and looked up at his friend, shielding his eyes from the setting sun with a hand, “I’m coming, I’m coming…” He told Enden, mocking annoyance as he trudged over to the low branch Enden had used previously.

Enden suddenly yelped in fear as, when he turned to continue his ascent up the tree, his legs slid from under him, sliding on the smooth oak bark. Eryx heard his friend’s scream. He stared up into the boughs of the great tree, gasping in fear as he spotted his friend, almost directly above his head.

Enden screamed slipped off his branch and fell, down, down… Eryx watched on in absolute horror.

With sudden and relieving a jolt, Enden caught hold of a thinner branch a few feet below his previous perch. He barely managed to clutch on with one hand, quickly grabbing the branch with his other. The branch strained under Enden’s weight, threatening to snap at any moment…

“Eryx! Help me!”

Eryx barely heard Enden’s plea for help. He was quite focused on something else.

When Enden had been falling, countless sharp twigs and branches whipped his arms, face and legs, slicing into his skin, leaving thin, stinging gashes that bled freely and bountifully.

And so, as he clung on to the new branch and cried out for help from his friend, little crimson droplets of blood plunged down like raindrops and fell to the leaves below.

Eryx flinched as a drop or two of blood splashes onto his face, just below his eye. He shuddered violently as the blood dribbled slowly but surely down his face, down to the corner of his mouth…

All the background noise faded to the boy with yellow eyes until it sounded to him like he was underwater. Nothing else mattered to Eryx apart from the warm, salty taste of Enden’s blood…

And, of course, the hunt.

Eryx uttered a deep, inhuman growl in the back of his throat. As Enden clung on with just his fingers, Eryx’s pupils dilated and morphed into vertical slits. They glowed momentarily yellow, and his snout lengthened. As hair sprouted up on his arms and legs, he began pulling himself up the tree with a feral look in his yellow eyes, growling hungrily, his gaze focused tightly on the writhing form of his former friend and current prey.

As the sun dipped below the grassy horizon in the field the boy and wolf had raced across only minutes ago, a terrified and pain-filled scream echoed across the grassy plains, alarming some birds roosting in the oak tree. As the birds flew off towards the sunset, more screams echoed and slowly died out.